Scandal On Rincon Hill

by Shirley Tallman

  ALSO BY SHIRLEY TALLMAN

  The Cliff House Strangler

  The Rus sian Hill Murders

  Murder on Nob Hill

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  SCANDAL ON RINCON HILL. Copyright © 2010 by Shirley Tallman. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tallman, Shirley.

  Scandal on Rincon Hill : a Sarah Woolson mystery / Shirley Tallman.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-312-38697-9

  1. Women lawyers—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 3. San Francisco (Calif.)—History—19th century—Fiction. 4. Rincon Hill (San Francisco, Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3620.A54S33 2010

  813′.6—dc22

  2009039823

  First Edition: April 2010

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  In loving memory of our wonderful son, Chris.

  We will always believe.

  And, as always, to H. P.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to my niece, Melody Bennett, for being one of Sarah Woolson's most steadfast fans, and for inspiring the Melody Tremaine character featured in this book. What would I do without your loyal support, Mel, even if it's all too frequently accompanied by your outspoken opinion concerning which man should win Sarah's heart? Love you, sweetie!

  CHAPTER ONE

  The nightmare began early on the morning of Sunday, December 4.

  Upon reflection, perhaps I ought to rephrase this statement. By nightmare, I do not refer to the frightening dreams each of us suffers upon occasion. Rather I am describing the horrific events which sent ripples of fear through the inhabitants of Rincon Hill—nay, through the entire city of San Francisco—shortly before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 1881. Unarguably, the murder which set the horror in motion that morning was a tragedy, yet none of us could have possibly foreseen the carnage which was yet to follow.

  I had retired late the previous evening, and was in a deep sleep when I was abruptly awakened by an odd noise. I sat bolt upright in my bed, but it was several moments before my groggy mind comprehended the source of that sound; some fool was throwing rocks at my window!

  Pushing back my bedcovers, I arose and, without bothering to pull on slippers or robe, hurried across the room to the window facing the west side of the house. I was reaching for the edge of the drapes when another handful of pebbles bounced against the pane. By now thoroughly awake, and not a little irritated, I angrily pulled up the sash.

  Below me, a pool of light emanated from a kerosene lantern, held aloft by the dark figure of a man. Regarding him in some surprise, I realized he appeared to be wearing the dark blue frock coat (appearing nearly black in the dim light) of the San Francisco police department. I should have known, I thought, expelling a sigh of relief. The man peering up at my window was George Lewis, my brother Samuel's good friend and a sergeant on the above-mentioned force.

  “George,” I called down to him, “would you kindly explain why you are throwing rocks at my window? And in the middle of the night?”

  “I apologize, Miss Sarah,” he said in a loud whisper. “Your back fence prevented me from reaching Samuel's window. A body's been found in the Second Street Cut, and I knew he'd want to be the first reporter on the scene. Would you—could you please wake him?”

  I thought for a moment I had misheard. “Did you say you found a body just two blocks from our house?”

  “Yes, and I'm in something of a hurry. I have to return there as quickly as possible.” His voice grew more urgent. “I hate to bother you, Miss Sarah, but would you please tell your brother?”

  I made up my mind on the instant. “Yes, I'll fetch him right away!”

  In my bare feet, and still not bothering with a robe, I left my room and padded quickly down the hall. The way was but dimly lit by several small sconce candles hung on the walls, requiring me to watch carefully where I stepped in order to avoid the squeakier floorboards. Samuel's bedroom was located at the rear of our house, overlooking the back garden. The gnarled old oak tree that grew just outside his window had for years provided my brother with a convenient method for coming and going without our parents being any the wiser. Even now I knew he occasionally utilized the tree for this purpose, especially if he were pursuing a newsworthy story.

  Unknown to my mother and father, or any other member of the family, for that matter, Samuel—who had completed his legal education some five years previous—had invented endless excuses to postpone taking his California Bar examinations. In those intervening years, he had become far more interested in the life of a crime journalist, for which he had unarguably been blessed with considerable talent.

  The reason for this subterfuge was because our father, the Honorable Horace T. Woolson, superior court judge for the County of San Francisco, nurtured a deep prejudice, not to mention mistrust, toward anyone in the newspaper business. It was Samuel's profound hope that Papa would never discover the real reason why he continued to avoid taking that last step en route to becoming an attorney. He had, you see, been busy forging a career in journalism under the name Ian Fearless, the noted San Francisco crime reporter much in demand by a variety of publications, ranging from the Police Gazette to the city's well-established daily newspapers. George Lewis was right. Samuel would undoubtedly do anything to scoop the town's other reporters when it came to a good murder.

  Not stopping to knock, I boldly entered my brother's room and crossed to his bed. Samuel was an especially sound sleeper—it was a family joke that he'd even managed to sleep through several significant earthquakes—and I was forced to shake him by the shoulders before he could be roused from his slumber.

  “What the hell?” he grumbled, pulling the bedcovers over his tousled head. “Go away and let me sleep.”

  “Samuel, wake up,” I said, continuing to shake him. “George is waiting for you outside. They've found a body in the Cut. He thought you'd want to cover the story.”

  At this, he sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “What time is it?”

  By the faint glow of candlelight spilling through the open door to the hall, I could just make out the hands of his clock.

  “It's a few minutes after two o'clock,” I told him. “Hurry up and get dressed if you want an exclusive story.”

  Without waiting for him to agree, I scurried back to my own room. Hastily, I tore off my nightgown and pulled on the first dress that came to hand. Not bothering with petticoats or stockings, I threw on a pair of old boots and tossed a long, hooded wrap over my shoulders. I gathered my thick mop of tangled hair into a bun as I raced down the stairs and, grabbing hold of one of the lanterns kept at the ready in a downstairs cupboard, flung open the front door. Leaving it slightly ajar behind me, I joined a startled-looking George Lewis who stood waiting on the street.

  “Miss Sarah,” he protested, “you can't mean to come with us. The victim is . . . that is, it's not a pleasant sight.”

  “Never mind about that, George,” I said, straightening my cape so that it covered me more securely. “You should know by now that I am not faint of heart.”

  Before George could find more reasons to object to my presence, my brother came flying out of the house, pulling on his topcoat with one hand, while attempting to balance a note pad and his own lantern in the other.

  “I might have known you'd insist on coming along,” he said, spying me standing ne
xt to his friend.

  “I tried to tell her she should stay here,” George said, regarding me unhappily. “Where I'm taking you is no fit place for a lady.”

  Samuel gave a dry little laugh. “Save your breath, George. You have as much chance of stopping her as you'd have holding back a wild boar.” Striking a match, he lit both our lamps, then blew out the flame. “All right, my b'hoy, lead us to this body of yours.”

  George flashed me one more uncertain look, then silently turned and set off at a brisk pace toward the Harrison Street Bridge. This structure, which the noted author Charles Warren Stoddard referred to as “a bridge celebrated as a triumph of architectural ungainliness,” had been erected to span Harrison Street across the gap caused by the infamous Second Street Cut. Many San Franciscans—my father and I included—considered the cut a greedy and ill-advised scheme, which had signaled the beginning of the end to Rincon Hill, until then one of the city's finest districts.

  Tonight, the bridge loomed before us like a long, graceless serpent, barely distinguishable against the dark sky. A god-awful eyesore, Papa was fond of saying, and I must admit that I heartily agreed with this sentiment.

  As we drew nearer, I spied a one-horse chaise parked to the right side of the road leading onto the bridge. A man I assumed to be the driver moved out of the shadows and signaled to us with his lantern, then turned and directed us to yet another light burning on the dirt slope below the bridge. Stepping closer, I could make out the figures of three men standing some thirty feet beneath us. The man waving the lantern up and down was wearing a police uniform. Two more dark forms stood off to the side, silently watching our approach.

  “The men standing next to Officer Kostler are the ones who discovered the body,” explained George. “They were crossing the bridge when they heard screams coming from below. They say they saw the figure of a man scrambling up the opposite embankment. When they investigated, they found the victim lying under the bridge with his head bashed in. They sent the driver to summon the police, then agreed to wait with the body while I fetched Samuel.” In the lantern light, I could make out a wry smile. “Kostler owes me a favor, so I trust him to keep his trap shut about my little side trip to your house.”

  Admonishing us to watch our step, George picked his way cautiously down the eastern embankment of the overpass, a precarious, hundred-foot side hill prone to mud slides during the rainy season, and sloping steeply to the bottom of the “cut” and the redirected Second Street below.

  About a third of the way down, I spied a dark, unrecognizable shape sprawled in the dirt, partly hidden by one of the concrete bridge supports. As George held up his lantern, it was possible to make out the line of a leg, and just above it, a hand. Drawing closer, and raising my own lantern, I could see that the victim was a man, and that he lay facedown, his arms stretched out as if attempting to ward off the blows to his head. His legs were flung out to either side of his trunk at awkward angles.

  It shames me to admit to such squeamishness, but I confess that I recoiled at the sight of the man's wounds. His dark hair was matted with blood, and the right side of his face had been battered in beyond recognition. As Samuel drew closer, the combined light of the three lamps revealed a three-foot section of a two-by-four lying half a dozen feet above the body on the steep slope. From the blood-soaked look of it, I concluded that this must be the murder weapon. George obviously concurred, although he made no move to pick it up, or indeed to move it.

  “He hasn't been touched,” Officer Kostler told his superior. “And no one else has come along, or even crossed the bridge, for that matter.”

  One of the two men standing apart from the policeman regarded George in some distress. His round, full face appeared very pale in the spill of lantern light.

  “It's late and damn cold,” he said, his voice none too steady. “Can we be on our way now? We know nothing more about this horrible crime than we've already told you.”

  “Just a minute,” said George. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pencil and notebook. After jotting down their names and addresses, he informed the two men that they were free to leave. “But we may want to speak to you again at a future date, so please inform us if you plan to leave town.”

  The men nodded gratefully, then scampered up the hillside as quickly as they dared, given the dim light and unsure footing.

  When they were gone, Samuel moved closer and felt the man's face. “He's still warm, and this is a chilly evening. Most likely he was murdered within the past half hour.”

  “Yes,” George agreed. “That skews with the witnesses's account. Too bad they weren't here a few minutes earlier. Might have scared off whoever did this, and saved the bloke's life.”

  My brother peered down at the sad figure who, a short time earlier, had been as alive as any of us standing here now. “Who is he?” he asked his friend. “Have you gone through his pockets?”

  George nodded. “That was the first thing I did when I realized the poor sod was beyond mortal help. Whoever did him in took his wallet, but left his gold pocket watch and the two gold rings he's wearing. There were a few bills stuffed into one of his pockets. Of course it's hard to tell if anything else is missing until we speak to his family.”

  “So you think it was robbery then?” asked Samuel.

  “Looks like it,” George replied. “Probably a case of the poor bugger being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “But, George, that makes no sense,” I said. “Why would a thief leave behind cash and valuable jewelry?”

  “That's easy enough to explain, Miss Sarah,” George said with a cheerless smile. “The knuck sees this fellow crossing the bridge and decides to take advantage of the opportunity. He takes the mark's wallet, but before he can grab anything else, he hears a carriage on the bridge and the sound of voices. He very sensibly skedaddles off before anyone has time to see his face.”

  “I don't know,” I said, still not convinced. “Why kill the poor man? Surely the thief ran little risk of being identified on such a dark night. Why not just render his victim unconscious, rob him, then leave before he came to? Surely there was no need to beat the man's head in, er—” Out of my side vision I caught a glimpse of the victim's battered upper torso and swallowed hard. “Like that.”

  “Who knows, Miss Sarah?” said George. “Sad to say, we see this sort of thing all too often. These rounders care little enough about their victims. Just as soon kill them as not.”

  I knew what he said was true, but I continued to be troubled by the excessively violent nature of the crime.

  Before George could respond to these concerns, Samuel nudged my arm and nodded up the slope. Following his gaze, I spied a stout figure making his careful way down the hill with the aid of a kerosene lantern. As the light swung back and forth in front of his face, I was dismayed to recognize the newcomer as our father.

  When Papa grew closer, I saw that he was wearing the old topcoat he kept on the back porch, along with the gardening boots which were also stored there. I suspected that beneath his coat he might well be wearing nothing more than his nightshirt. His hair was mussed, and he looked none too happy. I glanced quickly at Samuel, who shared my surprise at this unlikely addition to our group.

  “Papa,” I called out. “What are you doing here?”

  My father did not immediately respond, seemingly busy saving his breath for the arduous descent. Even when he finally reached us, he spent several moments taking in deep gulps of air before endeavoring to answer my question.

  “I heard the two of you leave the house,” he said, once his breathing had steadied. “You made enough noise to wake the dead. Couldn't imagine why in tarnation you were stomping hell-bent down the stairs in the middle of the night. I managed to follow your lanterns, although there was no need for you to walk so blasted fast!”

  His eyes fell on the crumpled body lying beneath one of the bridge supports, and he stopped short. “Who is this?” His voice was less strident as he reg
arded the unfortunate man.

  George was the first to answer. “We don't know his identity yet, sir. Whoever did this made off with his wallet.”

  My father moved closer to the body. He appeared to be paying particular attention to the man's clothing and shoes. For the first time, I realized the victim was wearing evening dress; he had evidently attended the theater, or a soiree of some kind that evening.

  “May I turn his head?” Papa asked George. “I'll try not to disturb anything else.”

  George nodded, but seemed puzzled why my father should make such a request. We all watched silently as Papa pushed up his sleeves and gently moved the man's head until he could more clearly see his face. Bringing his lantern closer, he studied the victim's features for several long moments.

  “I think I know this man,” he said at last, stepping almost reverently back from the body. “His condition makes it difficult to be certain, but I believe his name is Nigel Loran, no, wait, it was Logan, Nigel Logan. If I am not mistaken he is—was, rather—a botanist or biologist of some sort. My wife and I met him for the first time last night, at a party we attended in honor of the Reverend Erasmus Mayfield's twenty-fifth ordination anniversary. Mayfield is the rector at the Church of Our Savior.”

  “Do you happen to know where Mr. Logan lives?” George asked Papa. “It can't have been too far away for him to walk home so late at night, instead of taking a cab.”

  My father thought for a moment before replying, “I believe I heard someone say that he had a room in a boardinghouse on Harrison Street, several blocks beyond the bridge. I seem to recall that he taught science at the University of San Francisco. You know, the college run by the Jesuits?”

  Indeed I did know. This renowned institution had been established in 1855 by the Jesuit fathers. Located on Market Street between Fourth and Fifth, it was now widely regarded as one of the city's foremost academies of higher education. If Mr. Logan had taught classes there, he must have been an accomplished scholar.